the arm. “Hoffer is Mafia?”
“Didn’t you know? One of those American syndicate boys the Yanks deported during the last few years.”
“Not really.” He shook his head. “Oh, she thinks he’s a swine all right, but this is only her second visit to Sicily. To her, Mafia is the two lines in the tourist handbook that says it’s a romantic memory.”
Which was reasonable enough. What would she know, spending the greater part of the year at some fancy English boarding school and most of the rest following the social round in France, Switzerland and the usual places. We had something in common there.
“So Hoffer is working for the Society over here?”
“Do me a favour.” Serafino seemed surprised. “You know the rule. Once in, never out. He’s the last of half a dozen similar.”
“What happened to the others?”
“Two pressed the starters in their Alfas and went straight to hell. The rest were ventilated in one way or another as I remember. They had the knife out for Barbaccia, but they made a big mistake. The old wolf was a match for all of them.”
“The attempt on his life,” I said. “The bomb which killed my mother, who was responsible for that?”
“Who knows?” He shrugged. “Any one of them. Does it matter? Barbaccia will have had all of them before he is through.”
My flesh crawled at the enormity of it. Vito Barbaccia, Lord of Life and Death. He was well named. I shuddered and went after Serafino who was striding ahead, whistling cheerfully.
The shepherd’s hut looked as if it had been there since time began. It was constructed of rocks and boulders of various sizes, the gaps in between filled with dried mud and the low roof consisted of sods on top of oak branches.
At that point the stream had turned into a brawling torrent, descending rapidly through several deep pools, disappearing over an apron of stone about fifty yards below.
The hut was built into a sloping bank in a clearing beside the stream and looked remarkably homely. A couple of donkeys grazed nearby with three goats and half a dozen chickens moved in and out of the undergrowth, pecking vigorously at the soil.
A boy of eighteen or nineteen, presumably the Joe Ricco Cerda had mentioned, crouched over a small fire, feeding the flames beneath a cooking pot with sticks. Except for his youth and red Norman hair, he was depressingly similar in appearance to the rest of them. The same cloth cap, patched suit and leather leggings, the same sullen, brutalised features. He got up, staring at me curiously, and the Vivaldi brothers joined him, crouching to help themselves with a dirty and chipped enamel mug to what vaguely smelled like coffee.
Serafino and Joanna Truscott sat on a log by the stream and he produced from somewhere another piece of cigar and lit it. He looked up into the grey morning. “Still it doesn’t make sense.” He shook his head. “I’d give a lot to know what Hoffer is playing at.”
“Perhaps the whole thing is simpler than we think,” Joanna said. “Maybe he assumed you would do anything for money.”
“He could be right there,” I agreed, but somehow it didn’t sound too funny because it sent me off on another train of thought, one I wanted to avoid, but Serafino wouldn’t let it alone.
“These friends of yours, you can trust them? They’re not making a monkey out of you?”
I thought about it hard and tried to sound confident. “Anything is possible in this life, but I don’t think so. There’s one way to find out, of course.”
“And what is that?”
“I’ll go and see them.”
He nodded, biting on his cigar, a frown on his face. Joanna Truscott said, “You could make them an offer on my behalf if you like. It would be nice to turn the tables on my stepfather for once.” She picked up a stick, snapped it between her hands. “He married my mother for money, did you know that? When she wouldn’t give him any more, he got rid of her.”
“Are you certain of that?”
She nodded. “Not that I could prove it. He thought he’d get everything because he knew she loved him – loved him to distraction – but he made a mistake. She left me everything, and now he’s in trouble – bad trouble.”
“What kind?”
“He needs money – a great deal of money. He’s frightened, too.”
“All right, wait for me here.” I looked at my watch, saw that it was an hour since I had left Burke and the others which meant they would already be on their way down. “I’ll be about half an hour.”
I thought they might stop me from going, but nobody moved. When I looked back from the edge of the trees, Joanna Truscott had taken off her red scarf and the blonde hair gleamed as the first rays of the early morning sun broke through the clouds.
I ploughed up the steep slope, pushing through the undergrowth and the going was so hard that I had little time to concentrate on anything else except making progress. But I wasn’t happy. The trouble was that, in my heart, I’d never believed Hoffer’s story for a moment. Certain aspects of it were always manifestly impossible and if I’d seen the flaws, why hadn’t Burke?
But then I couldn’t believe the second possibility. He’d done many things in his time – aided and abetted by me on occasion. Killed ruthlessly and often without compassion, but as a soldier. It was inconceivable that he would have agreed to murder a young girl for money. In any case, it would not have been possible with the rest of us there.
So deep in thought was I that it was with a sense of surprise that I found myself at the spot by the stream where I had met the Honourable Joanna earlier. I paused to catch my breath and a stick cracked behind me.
“Hold it right there.” Piet Jaeger stepped from behind a tree, his assault rifle levelled at my belt.
“Stacey, what happened? We were getting worried.”
Burke moved out of the trees with Legrande and Piet Jaeger went to stand point at the edge of the little clearing automatically. He was a good soldier, always had been, I’ll say that for him.
“Well, what happened?” Burke said again. “Did you have any luck?” He frowned suddenly. “Where’s your rifle?”
“In custody,” I said. “One of Serafino’s boys took a fancy to it.”
He went very still. “You’d better explain.”
I moved to the side of the stream away from Jaeger and Legrande and sat on a boulder. Burke lit a cigarette and squatted before me, his rifle across his knees.
“Okay, what happened? You were supposed to scout, not make contact.”
“I found the girl up here on her own having a swim. No guards, no restraint. When I told her who I was from, she expected me to kill her.”
“She what?” A look of astonishment appeared on his face.
“As for Serafino and his boys,” I went on. “They aren’t sweating over her fair white body in turn as Hoffer implied. They’re working for her. By staying up here, she stays alive. It’s as simple as that.”
I gave him the whole story in detail, even the girl’s suspicions about her mother’s death and I watched him closely all the time. When I was finished, he got to his feet and stood there, staring down into the water, jiggling a handful of pebbles.
“At least it explains a few things. Hoffer had a word with me just before we left. He said he was worried because the girl had a history of what amounted to a kind of mental instability. That she’d had treatment a couple of times without success. He said she was sex mad and probably enjoying every moment of her experience. He seemed to think she might kick up a fuss about coming with us. He said she very easily became hysterical and was capable of making the wildest accusations.” He turned. “You’re sure she isn’t…?”
I shook my head. “I’ve spoken to Serafino. He told me he was hired to kill the girl and changed his mind because he wanted to do Hoffer down. He doesn’t like him.”
